Elliptic, a British startup firm aimed at tracing suspicious crypto activity, has raised $23 million USD in a funding round led by SBI Holdings.
Elliptic to Expand into Asian Markets
The Series B funding round was led by Japanese financial institution SBI Holdings and will enable Elliptic to continue expansion into Asian markets where it has recently opened an office in Singapore and will open another in Japan this week. Elliptic CEO and founder James Smith cited Asia as a highly attractive market for the company due to its prominent crypto community and the fact that Asian regulators tend to be more technologically advanced than elsewhere in the world.
“The Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Japanese Financial Services Agency are very well-versed in crypto. Japan has its own licensing scheme for exchanges; I think all that is really key to the growth of crypto because once you set the ground rules, then businesses can engage and innovate,” Smith told CoinDesk.
SBI to Incorporate Elliptic’s Technology into VC Trade
Elliptic has developed artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies that are capable of tracing and locating suspicious transactions on blockchains. The company was founded in 2013 in London and had previously raised $12 million USD in five funding rounds. SBI was keen to get involved with the company as it has a number of crypto assets under its portfolio, including an exchange called VC Trade, which will incorporate Elliptic’s technology.
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Elliptic is also looking beyond expansion into Asia with this investment, as it also has plans to develop a monitoring service for Facebook’s under-fire Libra network. Libra has received heavy criticism and scrutiny from regulators who question how they are meant to trust Facebook given the social media giant’s recent history of data misuse. Elliptic hopes to give somewhat of a helping hand to Libra by providing added transparency and security to the network.
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